VI.] THE SOUTHERN MONGOLS. 195 



taken full advantage, educating, civilising, welding together, and 

 making a people out of the downtrodden Karen tribes, while 

 Christianizing them 1 ." 



In the Burmese division proper are comprised several groups, 

 presenting all grades of culture, from the sheer 

 savagery of the Mros, Kheongs, and others of the Burmese 

 Arakan Yoma range, and the agricultural Mugs of 

 the Arakan plains, to the dominant historical Burmese nation of 

 the Irawadi valley. Here also the terminology is perplexing, 

 and it may be well to explain that Yo/na, applied by Logan 

 collectively to all the Arakan Hill tribes, has no 



Perplexing 



ethnic value at all, simply meaning a mountain tribal Nomen- 

 range in Burmese 3 . Toung-gnu, one of Dr Mason's 

 divisions of the Burmese family, was merely a petty state founded 

 by a younger branch of the Royal House, and "has no more 

 claim to rank as a separate tribe than any other Burman town 3 ." 

 Tavoyers are merely the people of the Tavoy district, Tenasserim, 

 originally from Arakan, and now speaking a Burmese dialect 

 largely affected by Siamese elements ; Tungthas, like Yoma, 

 means "Highlander," and is even of wider application; the 

 Tipperahs, Mrungs, Kumi, Mros, Khemis, and Khyengs are all 

 Tungthas of Burmese stock, and speak rude Burmese dialects. 



The correlative of Tungthas is Khyungthas^ "River People," 

 that is, the Arakan Lowlanders comprising the more civilised 

 peoples about the middle and lower course of the rivers, who are 

 improperly called Mugs (Mag/is) by the Bengali, and whose real 

 name is Rakhaingtha^ i.e. people of Rakhaing (Arakan). They are 

 undoubtedly of the same stock as the cultured Burmese, whose 

 traditions point to Arakan as the cradle of the race, and in 

 whose chronicles the Rakhaingtha are called M'ranmdkrihj "Great 

 M'ranmas,'' or "Elder Burmese." Both branches call themselves 

 M'ranma, M'rama (the correct form of JBarma, Burma, but now 

 usually pronounced Myamma), probably from a root mro, myo, 

 "man," though connected by Burnouf with Brahma, the Brahmani- 

 cal having preceded the Buddhist religion in this region. In any 



1 Capt. R. C. Temple, Academy, Jan. 29, 1887, p. 72. 

 - Capt. Forbes, Languages of Further India, p. 61. 

 3 Ibid. p. 55. 



132 



